SOAP LAKE — Work will begin in late February on a project to reduce the possibility of rocks falling onto State Route 17 north of Soap Lake. 

Miguel Castillo, engineer on the project for the Washington State Department of Transportation, said the project is scheduled to start Feb. 20. The project area is the section of SR 17 from Soap Lake to the Lake Lenore Caves, where the road runs between Soap Lake or Lake Lenore and the rock embankment. Due to the intricate nature of the work, he estimated the project will take about seven months to complete.

“There’s a lot of work there,” Castillo said. “All that work is very slow — it is time-consuming.”

Total project cost, including the WSDOT portion, is about $7.86 million, he said.

The goal is to stabilize the face of the embankment, which is mostly rock.

“There is a lot of loose rock that keeps coming down,” Castillo said.

Construction crews will climb the rock face, taking out material as they go. 

“They will pick at that loose rock and bring it down,” he said. 

Some spots could be subject to erosion but are still stable — and some of the rocks are big, bigger than a car, he said – and will get a different treatment.

“(Crews) will bolt those to the hill,” Castillo said, drilling through them into the still-stable rock. 

Even when all that’s done there could still be areas with loose rock, and Castillo said metal netting will be installed in those sections to catch anything that falls and keep it from bouncing off other rocks into the road.

In addition to stabilizing the rock embankment, crews will be grinding down the existing road surface, adding a new layer of asphalt and rumble strips. 

Detours will be available through the project area, and more information will be available on the WSDOT website as it gets underway.

That’s not the only project planned for Grant County this summer, but one in Adams County that’s been in the planning stages for a couple of years has been scheduled for 2025.

Planning began on a roundabout at the intersection of SR 17 and Cunningham Road at Othello in 2022. The project originally was scheduled for 2023, but was postponed to 2024 or 2025. 

Cunningham Road is one of the main entrances into Othello, and in fact it’s renamed Main Street where it cuts through town. Department of Transportation engineers have said in earlier interviews that the intersection is a candidate for a roundabout due to a high number of injury accidents. 

Right- and left-turn lanes have been added northbound and southbound, the intersection was reworked to improve sight lines and the speed limit was reduced to 50 miles per hour. However, those changes didn’t eliminate the concerns at the intersection.

A project through Moses Lake that was postponed in 2023 was rescheduled to 2024. A section of SR 17, including a section of PIoneer Way, will be repaved.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].